The websites of the Defence Ministry, Home and Law ministries crashed hours after Defence Ministry website was hacked. Top cyber security official have denied any hacking and said that the problem is due to a hardware problem.

According to reports, Chinese characters were appearing on the ministry's website.

When newsnation.in team visited the url it showed the message, “This site can’t be reached. mod.gov.in took too long to respond.”

Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Twitter said that the website was down, and divulged no information.

"Issue with the MoD website ( http://mod.nic.in ) has been taken note off. Appropriate action has been initiated," Sitharaman tweeted.

Reliable sources in the Defence Ministry told News Nation that the ministry is in regular touch with the National Informatics Centre (NIC).

“It would be too early to say who have hacked the website. The matter being displayed in the screen is not readable,” the source said.

Meanwhile, the ministry is trying to restore it, a spokesperson in the ministry said.

"We are seized of the matter. The National Informatics Centre, which maintains the website, is trying to restore it," the spokesperson said.